<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>he, in the mind of you by radsappysucker</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795162">he, in the mind of you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/radsappysucker/pseuds/radsappysucker'>radsappysucker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Questionable Polyamory Practices, The Homestuck Epilogues, The Homestuck Epilogues: Candy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:14:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,940</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/radsappysucker/pseuds/radsappysucker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows that if you force the conversation, it’ll be through a litany of questions: What does this mean for us? Why are you doing this now? What about Jade? Maybe he even knows that you’d deem his answers unsatisfactory. But as you look at him, you find yourself believing — not unkindly — that he doesn’t really know the first thing about you. </p><p>Because if he did, he would know that you could never, ever turn him away.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>he, in the mind of you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this takes place before meenkat and the davejade marriage.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It happened differently in your head.</p><p>But then, most things do. Such is the nature of life, whether it unfolds on Alternia or Earth C or anywhere else in paradox space, presumably. You know this. You have pretty much always known this. The gulf between what you want and what you get has stretched out before you countless times since you first wiggled out of the brooding caverns a disfigured affront to trollkind all those sweeps ago. On some occasions, the universe guides you across the breach with a monkey’s paw at your back. You wanted more than anything to be a leader, and then you didn’t, and now, one empty eye socket, two permanent frown lines, and thousands of unavenged rebels toiling in prison camps later, you are the reluctant Commander of the rebellion.</p><p>And yet. There’s this want, this bleeding, persistent thing that’s more precious to you than anything in the world, and though you can’t make it real, you can sure as hell make it perfect. In your mind, the reunion is like two neodymium magnets snapping into place. You both resolve, more or less simultaneously, to forgo all the bullshit excuses that have kept you cowardly and complacent for far too long. You fall into each other’s arms and your lips slide together with all the unpracticed ease of the first time you called him your best friend. The same skitters of electricity that danced across your arm whenever he held your hand thrum up and down your entire body. When you finally part, his eyes are all you can see; white sclera, blown pupils ringed in candy red, crinkled at the edges and so gloriously, painfully human. </p><p>In reality, you are sitting at the desk in your respiteblock with your back facing the door when he knocks. </p><p>“State your business, whoever-the-fuck,” you call out, not bothering to look up from the intel report you’ve been poring over for the better part of the evening.</p><p>Silence in response. It drags on just long enough that you begin to wonder if your would-be guest mercifully gave up and let you be, but then — “Hey. It’s me, uh. Dave? Strider.”</p><p>Your stomach plummets. Your train of thought stutters to a halt, and then abruptly switches tracks. It’s been a little over two months since Dave and Jade joined the rebellion, and you have yet to give them a full tour of the base, mostly because you didn’t think they would need it — for their own safety, you have assigned them a strictly peripheral role in the war effort. If Dave put in the effort to track you down by himself, then something might be wrong. </p><p>“Dave?” you echo, stupidly, before schooling your voice into an imitation of your usual authoritative rasp. You twist in your seat. “Come in.”</p><p>There’s another pause before the door swings open. Dave stands in the dim light of the threshold, clad in his crimson fatigues and aviators. Nothing seems to be off about him at first glance, though his hair appears uncharacteristically disheveled and his left hand keeps curling and uncurling into a fist at his side. He still looks great. Save for the smudge of nascent bags beneath his eyes and the shadow of shaved facial hair peppering his chin, time has done nothing to dull his boyish handsomeness. He will probably always look this young and sexy, you think, and you will probably continue to look like more and more of a wizened badass until you’re finally too old and weak for the latter half of that description to apply. “How’s it hanging, chief,” he says at length. </p><p>You can’t help but wrinkle your nose. “It hangs... fine?” you say. </p><p>“Cool cool cool.” He steps forward. Though you can’t tell where he’s looking, the way he tilts his head up and to the side indicates surveyal. “Sweet digs you got here. Like, for being underground and all. Could be a fuckin’ two page spread for Better Homes and Clandestine Guerrilla Headquarters. <em> 8 Reasons Why Dank Caves Are The High-Rise Condos of Subterranean Living</em>.”</p><p>You glance at the door, which Dave had closed behind him, and then back at the man in front of you. On some level, you appreciate his wayward stab at casualness. It’s been, what — four sweeps since you were last alone with each other?  Good on him for breaking the ice. Still, you dread the thought that he might try to handle this conversation — and, by extension, you — with kid gloves. </p><p>“Yeah, well, nothing says comfort like the literally looming threat of two dozen stalactites impaling you in your sleep because a fucking uranium bomb detonated on your roof!” you say.</p><p>Dave cranes his neck to get a better look at the aforementioned death-javelins-in-waiting. “Mm,” he says, or rather, hums. He neglects to follow this up. Surely he must be aware that he just dropped the conversational ball like it was made of lead? You know your attempt at recapturing the old bro banter was kind of lame, but Christ. Maybe you’ve disappointed him. Or maybe something really <em> is </em> wrong.</p><p>You cough. “So. What’s the issue.”</p><p>His head snaps back toward you. “Huh-what? What issue?”</p><p>“The issue that is so pants-shittingly time-sensitive and/or dire as to warrant a private, unscheduled meeting with me when we already see each other at weekly debriefings,” you clarify.</p><p>“Oh,” Dave says. He frowns slightly, ambles to the left half of your room, and observes your shelf of knick-knacks with his arms akimbo. “Man, can’t a dudetenant drop in on his brommander without it being a whole thing? It’s always ‘restock the supply cache’ this and ‘please make the propaganda just a skosh less esoteric’ that… No one wants to shoot the shit unless it’s at most one degree of separation from like, actually shooting shit.”</p><p>You watch through your singular eye as he runs a finger along the edge of a Can Town remnant. You think it might be shaking, but you can’t tell for sure. “I won’t apologize for doing everything I can to make sure this wretched goddamn trash-barge we call ‘the resistance’ stays afloat,” you say, rising out of your chair, “but you have a point.” When you flash him a smile, it’s only barely forced; though you’re thrumming with anxiety at the prospect of spending more time alone with him, you’d have to be completely blind not to see that something has shaken him up, and a totally jaded asshole not to be heartened by him coming to you as a friend. </p><p>You move in the direction of the door. “Come on, let’s walk.”</p><p>He spins around so quickly that you can’t help but stop in your tracks. Immediately you’re struck by how little distance there is between you. When he swallows, you can see the tendons in his neck shift, and the heady scent of his cologne floods your nostrils. “H-Hey, I have an idea,” he stammers out. “Let’s… not do that.”</p><p>Your room begins to shrink at the edges of your vision. “Why?” you ask. His eyebrows knit together, his mouth falling open, but you beat him to the punch: “Wait, never mind, you don’t have to answer that. Fuck. Shit. It’s just — this may or may not come as a shock to you, but I don’t exactly ‘entertain’ ‘company’. Give me a second.” You pull up your sylladex and begin scrolling through it, eye peeled for the red beanbag chair that used to take up space in your shared living room. Whatever makes Dave comfortable, you think. You can totally handle a feelings jam. Probably. The task is engrossing enough that you don’t register him moving closer until his face is just behind the holographic veneer of your sylladex.</p><p>“Karkat,” he says, and the naked emotion dripping off the way he says your name has you seizing up even before he leans in to kiss you. </p><p>Later on, when you reflect on this moment, you will wonder if there was any time trickery at play. It’s little more than a peck, really, close-lipped and fleeting and slightly off-center, but the soft press of his mouth against yours is <em> everything </em>. It leaves you bereft and frustrated while at the same time making you feel like you just emerged from a deep, indulgent slumber. </p><p>“Dave, what —,” you begin, your voice sounding distant and groggy to your own ears, but it’s Dave’s turn to interrupt you now. </p><p>“Fucking — <em> please</em>. Please please please can we not talk anymore?” His palms are pressed flat against your collarbones; his fingers rhythmically massage the top of your shoulders. “I know that’s rich coming from me, okay, I know, but… kick my ass out or let me stay, whatever you want, I just really don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p>Goddamn does he know you. He knows your self-loathing, overthinking tendencies, knows your stubborn inability to accept overtures of affection, knows that you’ll drive any shot of happiness into the ground with your fat fucking mouth before it has the chance to wither and die organically. He knows that if you force the conversation, it’ll be through a litany of questions: What does this mean for us? Why are you doing this now? What about Jade? Maybe he even knows that you’d deem his answers unsatisfactory. But as you look at him, you find yourself believing — not unkindly — that he doesn’t <em> really </em> know the first thing about you. </p><p>Because if he did, he would know that you could never, ever turn him away.</p><p>Without another word, you frame his face in your hands and kiss him as hard as you can. There was no real doubt that he’d reciprocate, but you feel a rush of bone-deep relief when he opens his mouth and lets you in. His tongue is warm and wet where it moves against yours. You can’t help it: you moan. Somewhere in the back of your thinkpan you register embarrassment at this, but it’s thoroughly stamped out when Dave does the same and slides his hands up into your hair, which quickly becomes your new favorite sensation in the whole entire world. You want him to do that again. As you pull back, you take special care to drag your fangs lightly across his lower lip. You lave your tongue against it and get your wish; he keens like a purrbeast, twisting his fingers into the mess of thick curls near the base of your horns. </p><p>It’s a little pathetic how quickly you’ve become intoxicated by this. Your hands glide down his shoulder blades and settle at the small of his back. Dave leans back into the touch at the same time as he presses your chests flush together, like he needs every point of physical contact between you to be as firm as possible. You both stroke and grab anywhere you can, lips connecting and parting in wet pops, clinging to the other with all the desperate desire of two Alternians about to be sent off-planet.</p><p>You’re the one to come up for air, as it were. You pant hard and rest your forehead against his and — oh. His shades are a little askew, his eyes wide open. He gazes up at you; you stare down at him. Neither of you breathe or blink. What do you see in there? You can’t be sure. You really fucking wish you knew. But at some point Dave looks away and ducks his head under yours, angling to drop kisses on your jawline. </p><p>For a moment you lose yourself in the sensation, in the wave of shivers that radiates down from Dave’s mouth directly to your groin, but you have the presence of mind to grab his chin and tilt his face back into your line of sight. “I’m taking these off,” you warn, tapping a claw against an arm of his shades. </p><p>He takes a second to consider that, which you had expected, but offers no resistance — which you hadn’t. “Alright,” he says. “You can, uh, take off the other stuff, too.”</p><p>...Holy shit. He’s serious. All of a sudden your body has difficulty performing some pretty basic tasks, like breathing and swallowing and ensuring your bloodpusher doesn’t burst out of your chest. But he deserves better than the blushing, neurotic virgin his request has melted you into, so much better, so you slide the frames off his handsome face, shuffle sideways to deposit them on your desk, and set about “taking off the other stuff.”</p><p>The whole process would be greatly expedited if you both weren’t trying to continue where you left off in your amorous explorations, but you manage. You decide not to bother with unbuttoning his jacket, electing to claw it open instead. From there you ruck his white undershirt up to his armpits — you want it <em> off </em>, obviously, but he seems determined to figure out the admittedly very complicated set of buckles and zippers crisscrossing your body, so you settle for dragging one hand down the exposed plane of his abdomen, his barely-there muscles.</p><p>He gives up on trying to kiss and undress you at the same time. “Jesus Christ, dude,” he says, all breathy and exasperated, “don’t tell me your anime-ass troll Big Boss get-up is secretly the world’s most complicated chastity belt.”</p><p>You huff. “I’ll have you know that every fucking inch of this sartorial masterwork is optimized for stealth and combat” — you grab his hand and guide it to a discreet button that, when pressed, retracts your chest rig, holsters, and mag pouch, leaving only your black and glowing red-piped compression shirt — “as well as concupiscent activities.”</p><p>Dave’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, hell yeah,” he says, a lopsided little smile gracing his features. The anxious, guarded energy he was giving off earlier seems to have dissipated. It’s infectious as all get-out; you can’t help but grin giddily back at him. “Remind me to pledge my immortal concupiscitated soul to Kanaya later.” </p><p>You make quick work of stripping down after that, and soon you’re both clad in nothing but your boxers. On some level you knew you were getting turned on by all the kissing and touching and declothing, but it doesn’t <em> really </em> hit you until you wrap your arms around his waist and lift him up. He makes a small noise of surprise as you do so, and when the tent in his underwear hardens against your stomach, you’re hit with a jolt of arousal so acute that your legs almost buckle beneath you. You want this so bad it <em> aches </em>. A growl bubbles up from your throat unbidden. You turn around, unceremoniously deposit Dave on the bed, and climb atop him. It takes all of your dwindling self-control not to rut against him like an animal in heat right then and there.</p><p>You reach down to where your knees bracket him and grab the outline of his dick. You look to him for a reaction. Dave’s head flops back against the bedspread, his hips jerking up into your hand. So far, so good. You take the pressure off long enough for you to lick your hand nice and wet, which has the added bonus of drawing Dave’s undivided attention before you pull him out of his boxers. </p><p>“Ugh, fuck,” Dave groans, flinging an arm over his eyes. He feels amazing in your grasp, warm and weighty and velvety smooth. Even more amazing are the reactions you coax out of him as you stroke up and down his length: the patchy flush spreading across his face and chest, the pulsing of his cock, the way he chews his bottom lip. He’s even more beautiful than you had imagined. You could spend forever touching him and it still wouldn’t be enough, you think.</p><p>He props himself up on one elbow and watches you jerk him off, mouth parted and eyes dark. You squeeze his cock at the base and tug upward in a lazy corkscrew motion. “Dave,” you mewl, sounding disgustingly wanton. Fortunately for you, Dave isn’t perturbed by this. His eyes shift into focus as he uses his free hand to paw between your legs, finding the heat and wetness there and pressing into it with the heel of his palm. You let out a choked “fuck.” Your eyes drift shut and your hand stills, too stimulated to do anything but sit there for a moment, wracked with pleasure as you come to life under Dave’s insistent grinding. </p><p>“Shit,” he hisses. He lurches upright and yanks your boxers down, all but freezing in place when your bulge unfurls.</p><p>Warmth floods your face. You look askance. You’re not ashamed of your body anymore — that’s not it. In all the times you’ve fantasized about him, Dave’s face being this close to your crotch has never once factored into your imaginings. You… aren’t sure that he’ll find your bulge sexy outside of the act of pleasuring him with it. “Well?” you prompt him, haltingly. “It’s fine if you hate it, just keep in mind that <em> you </em>inflicted this on the both of us.”</p><p>His breath ghosts over your skin. “Hey now, I ain’t inflicted nothing on no one,” he says in a slow, strange cadence. He skates his hands up to the juncture of your thighs and abdomen. You continue Not Looking at Him. “And I’m like the furthest thing from hating it, dude. If hating it is the floor, and the floor is lava, then I’m…” The way he trails off has you tentatively flicking your gaze back to him. When he continues, it’s in a mutter that seems only half-directed at you: “You know what, never mind. Less talking, more showing you what this mouth do.”</p><p>And he proceeds to do so, sticking his pink tongue out and taking your bulge into his mouth in one motion that sends a shudder through your whole body. You can’t help the strained “<em>ohhh</em>” that tumbles past your teeth. He moves back and forth slowly, luxuriously, sucking and licking down as much of you as he possibly can. Even more than the incredible physical sensations you’re experiencing, you find yourself deeply affected by the intimacy of what Dave is doing to you. This is far from standard sexual fare on Alternia — fangs and semi-prehensile organs being a logistical mismatch and all — so you don’t have a frame of reference for it. Maybe this is common among humans. It might not mean much of anything to them. But it’s you and Dave, so when he pushes himself to fit more of you into his mouth, when his left hand strokes your shaking thigh, when his right hand reaches under to tease the lips of your nook, the only thought in your mind is this: <em> I love him</em>.</p><p>You card your fingers gently through his silvery-blonde hair. “F-Fuck, this is,” you stammer out, “this feels <em> so fucking good</em>, Dave.” He hums in response, which sends this amazing buzz rippling down the length of you, and works two fingers into your wet hot nook. More. You need more. “You’re so good at this, what the hell… You, ah, weren’t lying about not hating it, were you?” He shakes his head with your bulge still in his mouth and hums again. God, he’s ridiculous. You have to laugh. The amusement subsides, however, to make room for a new idea. You cup his face in your hand and firm up your voice. <em> More</em>. “Look at me,” you say. </p><p>He looks at you. </p><p>It’s a fucking sight to behold. Saliva and red precum dribble down the taut corners of his mouth. You can actually see and feel your bulge moving against your palm through Dave’s cheek, which is sexier than it has any right to be. All the while he’s massaging your walls and gazing up at you through his eyelashes, trying and mostly succeeding at holding eye contact. You know how difficult that is for him; you’d be overflowing with pride and appreciation if you weren’t about to prematurely blow your load from the simultaneous finger-fucking and bulge-sucking. As it stands, you have to pull your hips back and gently guide his face away to prevent that from happening.</p><p>Disappointment shadows his features momentarily, but it’s cleared up by a shy smirk when he realizes the motive behind your actions. “Too much?” he asks, pulling his fingers from your nook, licking them clean, and then wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. </p><p>Your cheeks are ablaze. “Gross,” you scoff. </p><p>“Your <em> face </em> is gross,” he shoots back, breezily. You note that he’s full-on grinning again before he shoves his face into your thigh and nuzzles against you. “Grossly cute and handsome and shit.”</p><p>“Shut up, oh my god,” you beg. It comes out sounding far softer than you had intended. You paw at Dave’s shoulders until he’s lying flat on the bed and climb atop him, your face hovering a scant few inches above his, your bulge brushing against his hard cock. Both of you sigh in unison. It’s… incredible, being this close to him. “Do you… want it like this?”</p><p>“Like what?” he breathes. “You on top, me on bottom, getting my perky twink ass pile-driven by your tentadick?”</p><p>Any other time you would chew him out for ruining the moment, but you’re not taking the bait this time. You grind your hips down against his and let yourself feel smug about the way he squirms and bites his lip. “Yes, Dave, exactly like that.”</p><p>“Mmmm<em> fuck</em>,” he gasps, arching off the bed to get more friction. “Yeah, shit. I want that so bad, Karkat, you have no idea.”</p><p>You smile, press a kiss to the center of his chest, and revel in the anticipatory glee that surges through you. It would have been more than okay if he had said no, if he had wanted it differently. But he was the one who initiated this, so it seems only right that you should take the lead now. And, well. On a more base level, you really, <em> really </em> want the satisfaction of giving Dave the best and most romantic fucking he’s ever had. </p><p>You think you can do that.</p><p>You lean back so you can ensure that this next part goes as smoothly as possible. You grab your bulge by the base, line yourself up with his entrance, and wetly rub against him. Dave wraps his legs around your hips, digs his heels into your lower back. He looks tense, like he’s holding his breath. You’re holding yours, too. “What was that you said earlier? Oh, right: I know this is rich coming from me,” you begin, running your hand along the strange, soft, downy black hair on his shin, “but you need to calm the fuck down, just a little. I’m going to take care of you, alright?”</p><p>A beat passes, and then he seemingly deflates, letting his feet hit the bed. “Roger that,” he says. He gives you a thumbs up and lies there, absently tugging at his cock while you work him open. </p><p>The tip of your bulge is slicked up and tapered enough that you slide in past the first ring of muscle with ease. You stop there, even though it feels like every nerve ending in the lower half of your body is screaming at you to do the opposite, and watch intently as Dave screws his eyes shut and flares his nostrils. “Okay, wow,” he says, voice thick. “I’m — I’m good, babe, keep going.”</p><p>Your stomach does a somersault. <em> Babe </em>, huh? There’s too much power in a pet name; you can’t ever let Dave know how much that particular breed of sentimentality destroys you. You resume pushing in, further, deeper, immersing yourself in red-hot tightness. You disappear into him, your hips flush against the underside of his thighs, the sensation of him around you drawing a guttural purr from low in your chest. </p><p>Dave, for his part, looks contented, the slender column of his neck exposed and a hint of a smile lighting up his face in profile. He reaches out and makes a grabby motion like a needy infant. You chuckle helplessly and lower yourself enough for him to wrap his arms around your back, then pull out halfway and thrust in again. He gasps. “God <em> damn </em> you’re big.”</p><p>“Uh,” you say, half verbal response born out of flattered shock, half involuntary sex noise. You’re average at best by troll standards, but you won’t tell him that. For a moment you forget to reply, lost in the molasses-slow drag of his walls along your bulge as you begin to establish a rhythm. “There is no — uhn — sane reason for you to be kissing my ass like this when I’m already globes-deep in yours.”</p><p>Dave runs his fingers along the bumpy ridges of your grub scars and squeezes you between his legs. “That’s fair,” he says, on an exhale that stutters into a moan when you angle your hips up. “I’ll kiss it plenty later.”</p><p>Neither of you speak after that, mutually content to let the silence be filled by the soft sounds of exertion and skin against skin, which grow louder and more frequent as you pick up the pace. Every plunge of your body into his acts as a conversation. You curl in, he arches; you <em> ah </em> , he <em> oh </em> s. You move as if it were possible to sublimate all the things you feel for him into the joining of your bodies: <em> I missed you so fucking much, why did I leave without you, why the hell didn’t you stop me? </em>Dave sobs beneath you, but it’s out of pleasure, not pain. You kiss him deep and sloppy and grope around for his cock. It’s been leaking precome onto your abdomen with every thrust, you realize distantly, and his moans pitch higher when you start jerking him off. </p><p>Focusing on any single part of him as he falls to pieces is impossible. You are enamored by every little thing, and you endeavor to document it with your hands and your tongue and your arousal, frenetically, like the physical evidence of his attraction to you is a precious manuscript to be plucked from the flames. You savor the sweat-salty taste of brown skin pulled taut over his collarbones, the tremulous warble of his cries, the hot hold of him tightening around you while he climaxes. It doesn’t take long for you to follow. You bury your face in the crook of his neck and fuck him gracelessly until your vision turns white and you empty yourself in shuddering bursts.</p><p>The post-coital fog dissipates slowly. When it does, you maneuver yourself so that Dave is lying atop you, not stewing in a pool of your fluids. He responds to being manhandled in this way simply by sighing and pressing his face into your chest. Long gone are the affectations of cool, casual indifference that animate his body in social situations. He looks spent, but in a good way. Blissful. You wonder if you look at peace to him, too. You definitely feel it. </p><p>This is the least guarded you’ve been in… well, in your entire life. There are no horrorterrors, no Lords or Presidents that can hurt you now. You have been wrought open and made completely soft, and yet, against all odds, you are still drawing breath.</p><p>Dave rests his chin in the small valley between your pecs. He fixes you with a gaze both heavy-lidded and remarkably clear-eyed, and pokes your cheek. “Hey,” he says. It comes out a little hoarse, but his voice always sounds honey smooth through the filter of your ridiculous infatuation. </p><p>“Hay is for hoofbeasts,” you reply. You loll your head sideways until your mouth makes contact with his finger. He takes the hint, walking a soft pink pad across your lower lip. </p><p>“Jesus, not the Dad jokes,” he groans. “Egbert and English have that market pretty thoroughly cornered already, if you haven’t noticed. We’ve got enough fatherly pheromones stanking up our friend group without you appropriating socks-and-sandals culture.”</p><p>You throw your hands up in the requisite <em> I can’t believe this shit </em> gesture, though it lacks any conviction beyond humoring Dave. “Wow, it’s almost like that phrase existed without the same contextual baggage on a planet where biological family units were literally fucking unheard of!” you say. Dave’s finger almost slips into your mouth several times as you speak. “I like to think I’m pretty well-versed in all things human at this point, but you know that <em> I </em> know approximately jack shit and squat about what it means to be a Dad, or to have one.”</p><p>A frown momentarily mars Dave’s face. “Me neither,” he says, sounding thoughtful. The same worry that had consumed you when he first walked through your door prickles again at the edge of your mind. You picture John and Roxy and Jane and Jake cradling their soft, amorphously-featured infants as Jade looks on longingly. The scene shifts, then, to Dave, to the alien mix of rainwater and tears fogging up his shades at Dirk’s funeral. What’s going through his head right now? You don’t get the chance to ask — he gently inserts two digits in your mouth and traces the sharp edges of your teeth. “I still stand by my totally correct belief that you would make an awesome Dad, for what it’s worth.”</p><p>You don’t know how to respond to any of that. You physically <em> can’t </em>, not without biting Dave’s fingers off and/or sounding like an unintelligible wriggler with grubsauce stuck to the roof of their mouth. Your nook, on the other hand, has no qualms about reacting in its own way, which is to throb back to life as Dave strokes your tongue. It’s very hot and very not-conducive to carrying on a conversation. Regretfully, you grab Dave by the wrist and pull his hand away, placing a lingering kiss upon the stretch of his inner forearm as you do so. “Fine,” you say, “I’ll take your word for it, if you promise you won’t try to defile my mouth while talking out your wastechute about child-rearing ever, ever again.”</p><p>Dave’s thick eyebrows shoot up, affecting a hint of faux outrage. “What the fuck, man. Clutching my pearls over here. You can’t just accuse a guy of Freudian tendencies when he’s sincerely trying to lay down some erotic moves.” </p><p>The conversation proceeds like this for an indeterminate amount of time, the both of you trading good-natured barbs about suspected sexual hangups and fetishes, until such time as the dank, chilly air of the cave makes your mutual nakedness unignorable and embarrassing. You take turns using the ablution block, letting Dave go first. It occurs to you that it might be… nice, to bathe together. More efficient, too. The weight of what has just transpired between you, however, is starting to set in, and you need some time alone to process it. Dave and Jade aren’t together anymore; you’re desperately curious to find out why and how. Moreover, Dave initiated flushed sex with you; you need to know that it means to him exactly what it means to you.</p><p>By the time you dry yourself off and return to the main chamber of your hive, towel wrapped around your waist, Dave has already slipped back into his fatigues, combed his hair into tidiness, and perched himself on the edge of your bed, the white rectangle of a phone screen reflected in his aviators. He notices your presence with a full-body twitch, but quickly relaxes and beams up at you. Your stomach knots itself into an ouroboros. Fuck. You open your mouth to speak:</p><p>“We should talk —”<br/>“So I’ve been thinking —”</p><p>There’s a quiet <em> click </em> as you both snap your mouths shut. “Uh, awks,” Dave says at length. “You can go first, if you want.”</p><p>“No, no, go ahead,” you reply, sitting down next to him on the bed with a slight, sighing creak. “What’s on your mind?”</p><p>“Oh. Hm, okay.” His left leg begins bouncing up and down, subtly enough to be imperceptible to those who didn’t spend their adolescence agonizing over Strider body language, but glaringly obvious to you. “So like I said: I’ve been thinking. About how to make things right, mostly. Or at least the things that fall into the middle of the Venn diagram between ‘unconscionably shitty’ and ‘within my ability to change.’” Here he uses his hands to pantomime a circle. “Joining the rebellion was part of that, even though it was less me being a good person and more you doing me a solid by letting me LARP G.I. Joe.” He smiles. “Thanks for that, by the way.”</p><p>“No problem,” you say, hesitantly returning the smile. </p><p>“But anyway… I think I know what the other part is. To be honest, I’ve probably known it for a long time. It was just buried beneath an avalanche of my own bullshit. Had to send in a pack of search-and-rescue St. Bernard dogs to sift through the snows of internalized homophobia and rejection sensitivity. Now it’s just chilling and getting blitzed off of whatever sweet, sweet nectar they store in those little barrels.”</p><p>You can’t help but snort. “Okay, let me stop you before this ridiculous Old Earth metaphor careens any further into the fucking weeds.”</p><p>“Yeah, that one probably ran its course,” he concedes. “My point is that, back when we were both dating Jade — I really, really fucked up. Like royally so.”</p><p>“Oh…” you breathe, expectations swelling in your throat. “How do you figure?”</p><p>His next sentence comes out like so: “WellIwasinlovewithyouforstarters.” You don’t get the chance to process it before he continues. “And I never told you or anyone else… Which wouldn’t be that awful if I were the only one still feeling like absolute dogshit about it, but Jade was pretty torn up when you left and I think a non-negligible part of her still is.” He stabs his fingers into the coils of bleached hair hanging over his forehead. “And I don’t wanna assume that you like… love me back or whatever, but shit, dude. If these past several years of us not seeing each other have been even<em> half </em> as hard on you as they’ve been on me — I should probably be throwing myself at your feet begging for forgiveness. Fuck, I’ll do that for real, right here, right now, if that’s what it takes for you to give me another shot.” When he reaches over and grabs your knee, his grip is like a vise. “To give US another shot.”</p><p>You stare open-mouthed into the tempered glass abyss of his shades. Predictably, they show nothing but your own gobsmacked mug reflected back at you. You don’t need to see his eyes to know he’s telling the truth, though. He loves you. He’s <em> been </em> in love with you all this time! Every second spent without your hand on the back of his neck and your lips moving against his is a fucking travesty at this point. It’s time to seal the deal, Karkat. Even <em> you </em> can’t fuck this up.</p><p>And yet. </p><p>“Wait,” you say. A new worry has propelled itself to the forefront of your mind, and you don’t think you can dislodge it without Dave’s help. “I need to make sure I’m following you correctly. What exactly does ‘giving us <em>another</em> <em>shot</em>’ entail? And for that matter — ugh, fuck me running, I can’t believe how badly I’m about to mangle your stupid language’s grammar — who is ‘us’?”</p><p>Dave’s death-grip on your knee loosens. “Huh. Kinda thought that was obvious, but I guess I can see how it might be confusing,” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. “I’m asking if you want to date me and Jade. I mean you don’t <em> have </em> to date her if you don’t want to, but <em> I’m </em> dating her so it’s a package deal regardless. And I think us not all dating each other was a big factor in why it didn’t work the first time, so… It’s still totally up to you though, obviously…”</p><p>A chill settles over your body, freezing you to the very core. For a merciful moment you exist in this state of pseudo-suspended animation where nothing can affect you. Then comes the thaw radiating outward from your heart, and your veins are surging red-hot and your stomach roils with acid. You free yourself from Dave’s grasp and recoil so dramatically that you end up standing next to the bed, muscles tensed as if you just heard the staticky whirr of a nearby culling drone and need to leap for cover. “No, no, no, no, no,” you intone like a prayer. “You’re still with — Dave, I can’t —” You swallow thickly. If it’s possible, your stomach sinks even further. “Jesus Christ, does Jade know what you’re doing?!”</p><p>Dave flinches. “She approves of it, if that’s what you’re asking. Trust me, dude, I know I haven’t always been the best boyfriend ever, but I’m not such a scumbag that I’d fucking cheat on her. We’re in an open relationship.”</p><p>Something about this information flips a switch inside you. Just like that, your disbelief mutates into rage. You fling your hands into the air; your voice takes on a near-hysterical tenor. “Oh, well isn’t that just <em> sooo </em> fucking <em> progressive </em> of you guys! A happy, heterosexual human couple looking to spice things up by bringing exotic alien genitalia into the equation! Tell me, Dave, when you picture this scenario playing out, am I yours and Jade’s bitch boy or breeding stud?”</p><p>“Whoa, what the fuck! It’s not like that at all!” Dave yelps. “This isn’t some kinky group sex thing, Karkat, Jesus Christ. I’m sorry for whatever I said or did that gave you such an ass-backwards impression of what I’m trying to accomplish here.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, I’d say that you kissing and fucking me gave me the perfectly reasonable impression that you were single!” you snap. Shame burns hot on your cheeks and in the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. </p><p>At this, Dave lurches off the bed to stand before you, palms out in a placating gesture. “Okay. Help me out here. I might be a total fucking idiot, but I honestly wasn’t expecting you to have a problem with that part. Like, you didn’t seem to mind Jade dating me while she was dating you, and isn’t the whole quadrant system fundamentally polyamorous anyway?”</p><p>Your jaw actually drops a little. He… didn’t think you’d have a problem with ‘that part.’ He came to you, not his <em> girlfriend</em>, to find comfort and sex, and expected you to be copacetic with not learning the whole truth until after you had already given him what he wanted — because <em> quadrants</em>?! You remember how cagey he’d been earlier, the way he had begged you not to ask questions, and you have to actively stop yourself from putting your head through a rock wall. “It doesn’t work like that and you know it,” you growl instead, stomping toward the wardrobifier. You need to get back in your clothes, get the hell out of this room, and work on getting over this whole humiliating debacle as soon as possible. You select a duplicate of the outfit you wore earlier and try to focus only on the sensation of fabric materializing along your body, but you can hear Dave’s footsteps as he approaches from behind.  </p><p>“Right, yeah, you can’t have two matesprits for some wack-ass reason,” he starts, “but that still leaves the question of where these qualms came from. It’s not like I’m out there being a huge slut, if that’s what’s freaking you out. I literally haven’t been with anyone but Jade.”</p><p>“Oh my god, I couldn’t give less of a fuck how you get your bulge wet!” you lie. “You’re missing the point. It’s not about the quadrants or Jade or anything like that, so you can go ahead and nip that shit right in the bud! Just. Go back home, and if Jade asks, tell her — tell her whatever you want. It’s not my relationship, as I’ve made abundantly fucking clear.”</p><p>You move to show him the door. A hand suddenly encircles your wrist, holding you in place.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>It hangs in the air like smoke caught in a sunbeam. He expressed this exact sentiment just moments ago, but to hear it like this, so clear and direct — it digs into some well of emotion deep inside you. In the end, you still want nothing more than to hear him say those words, to let them wash over you and fill you up again and again until it’s as absurd to deny their veracity as it is to deny the color of the blood flowing through your veins. You indulge in them, knowing that you might never have another chance to do so. “I love you too,” you admit on a sigh, peering at him over your shoulder. </p><p>“We can work this out,” he says. </p><p>“We can,” you agree, “after you leave Jade.”</p><p>The hand wrapped around your wrist goes limp. Dave’s face falls. “I… don’t think I can do that.”</p><p>You turn to him, demanding, “Why not?!”</p><p>“Because it’s <em> Jade</em>,” he says, gesticulating emphatically. “You know, just the woman who’s been the goddamn picture of loyalty and devotion to my undeserving ass since we were preteens? I’d rather lobotomize myself with a rusty meat hook than be the kind of monster that would break her heart like that.”</p><p>Something in your chest twinges painfully, piercingly. Ugly. “People break up, Dave!” you say, trying to convince yourself as much as him. “Relationships end for one reason or another, and this planet we all collectively shat into existence keeps on fucking spinning. Is your ego really so overblown that you think Jade would just fall to pieces and never recover if you told her you didn’t want to do this anymore? Doesn’t all her loyalty and devotion warrant — at the very least! — some modicum of honesty?”</p><p>“It’s not — I don’t —” His mouth opens again, but no words come out. He sways back on the balls of his feet, lips pressed into a small, tight line. He does that clenching and unclenching thing with his fists and stares at the ground. It’s the most harried you’ve seen him since he first walked in, but there’s an additional layer of uncanniness in his apparent loss for words. You’re starting to get concerned when he finally speaks up. “Do you ever feel like… there’s no reason for anything that happens? I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter on <em> some </em> level, it’s more that — when you put it under a microscope and zoom in on it, you know, just magnify it to hell and get deep down into the nitty-gritty to see how and why shit works, it’s nothing but millions of identical cells of bullshit. And you look at yourself in the mirror, where it’s the same exact deal, and it’s like you can’t fucking make a move even if you wanted to. Do you ever feel that way? ‘Cause I feel that way almost all the time.”</p><p>It takes you a moment to process what he just said, out of left field as it is. His words unsettle you deeply. “What the hell are you talking about?” you sputter. “Of course there are reasons! How could you have <em> possibly </em> come to any other conclusion after all we’ve been through, which, if you’ll recall, included us learning as teenagers that we had a cosmic destiny spanning multiple universes?” </p><p>“I’m not denying that all that was true at one point,” Dave says, scratching the back of his neck. “Just that I don’t think it’s true anymore. That it hasn’t been since...” He looks up at you again, eyebrows raised and drawn together. You get the distinct impression that he’s searching for something in your countenance, like if he looks hard enough he might find a tell branded on the smooth leather of your eyepatch or carved into the chitinous outcrop of your horns. “You really don’t feel it, huh?”</p><p>He’s disappointed, you’re sure. Why wouldn’t he be? Not only are you not worth leaving Jade for, now you’re just another person who doesn’t understand him. That’s what wounds you more than anything else: the possibility that, in the end, it’s not your cowardice or your unwillingness to share him with Jade that stands in the way of you and Dave being together, but some insurmountable, fundamental incompatibility. Maybe it was always there, if it truly exists, or maybe it developed over time, a fungus growing in the dark hole where something good used to be. You should have known better — about yourself, about Dave, about the ways that life and love work. You let your naive fantasies throttle your frontal lobe into believing that everything after the <em> I love you</em>s would be easy.</p><p>When has anything this important <em> ever </em> been easy?</p><p>You don’t “feel it.” And you want to believe that <em> he </em> doesn’t feel it, either, not really. That this is all a story he’s telling, an alibi to avoid accountability for what he’s done to you and Jade, as much as that would enrage you further. But you’re intimately familiar with misery, and the folded-in slouch of his posture, the way his voice cracks on that question… you know that’s genuine. You feel <em> that </em>. You can’t even be mad at him for breaking your heart. In this moment, you pity him too much.</p><p>You steel yourself to hold his gaze and try to find the right words. “I’ll be honest,” you start, “if it <em> has </em> ever occurred to me that our existence might be withering away into meaninglessness, then my past self probably did the right thing by not dwelling on it! Maybe you’ve forgotten, Dave, but some of us don’t have an eternity to figure all this out. Fuck, the way shit’s panning out I might not even have a sweep! I do know one thing, though: if I get stabbed, strung up, or shot to death in the process of fighting for a better planet for my people, and I’m forced to sit there and watch as every single shame-dripping moment of my pathetic life flashes before me, at least I’ll know that the few things I accomplished fucking <em> mattered</em>.” Conviction surges through you. You grab Dave by the shoulders, hoping against hope that some of it might transfer to him. “I have no idea what happened to make you think that doesn’t apply to you, too, but you should know that it has no basis in reality. Dave, you… you mean so, so much to so many people. Whatever you decide to do, it matters, okay? To all of us. You just have to decide.”</p><p>You sound desperate —  you <em> are </em> desperate. You’re holding your breath for his reaction. A smile dawns slowly on Dave’s face, then, holding shades of sorrow and wry humor, like he’s privy to some joke or tragedy that you aren’t. “Statements like that are why you’re our leader,” he says, shuffling closer into your personal space. Before you know it, his arms are wrapped around your waist and his cheek is pressed lightly against yours. “Tell me what to do, Karkat,” he murmurs. “I think I need you to tell me what to do.” </p><p>Moisture gathers and seeps into your collar. For some reason your gaze is drawn upward, to the calcite spears hanging over you both. You picture them crumbling.</p><p>“Go home,” you say. </p><p>Dave stiffens.</p><p>“That’s an order.”<br/><br/></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! you can find me on twitter @radsappysucker. i also made a short spotify playlist for this fic: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/670kdCcuBp02fb5UtSnO92?si=KvYEDwK5SYifH8LYRLqwOQ</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>